Uzbekistan bans child labour in cotton fields

(TASHKENT) - Uzbekistan, the world's third-largest cotton exporter, has banned child labour in its cotton fields after coming under pressure from US and EU importers, a government official said Monday.

Uzbek Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyayev signed a decree on Friday to implement two international conventions against child labour that have been ratified by Uzbekistan, the official said on condition of anonymity.

"The government worked out an action plan to eliminate all forms of child labour and a special working group has been set up to monitor and control the situation so that school children stay out of cotton fields," the official told AFP.

"The prime minister has personally warned all local officials about the serious consequences of mobilizing school children to harvest cotton," he added.

Uzbekistan's new law defines 16 as the minimum age for employment.

The Central Asian nation, which producers more than 3.5 million tons of cotton annually, has come under serious pressure from major western retailers in recent years.

In August, a coalition of the four US trade associations urged the Uzbek government "to take decisive and immediate actions to end the use of forced child labour in its cotton fields."

In a letter to Uzbekistan's president Islam Karimov, the groups warned they might follow a number of North American and European companies that have already taken measures to exclude Uzbek cotton.

The latest move comes amid ongoing reforms to liberalize the state.

Uzbek officials have never acknowledged the use of child labour in its cotton fields in the past.

Mobilization for the cotton harvest started last Monday, and students of universities and other schools in the provinces who are over 16 have been taken to cotton fields, a number of independent and opposition websites reported.

"I wasn't taken to pick cotton because I am not yet 16," a girl from central Jizzakh province told AFP.

A teacher from Fergana province said her school had received an order not to take pupils to cotton fields.

"We are at school now. We heard there was a presidential order to stay at school," she told AFP by phone.